Tēnā koutou,

Welcome to the May update, providing the latest news and reporting from Bay of Plenty Regional Council's air quality monitoring programme in the Mount industrial area.  

PM10 exceedances

An exceedance of 51 µg/m³ was recorded at the Rata Street air quality monitoring station on 19 April. Staff were on site at this and other monitoring locations during the day, as alerts were being received from a number of locations. We are confident this breach can be attributed to natural heavy sea mist which was blanketing Mt Maunganui throughout this day and the sampling tape from the monitor is being analysed to confirm this was the cause. 

One breach of the NESAQ is permitted in a 12 month period and five years of no breaches is required to be free of polluted airshed status. Below is a breakdown of exceedances recorded in the Mount industrial area since we rolled out the network of air monitors in November 2018.

The decline in PM10 exceedances, since we started monitoring air quality in this area, reflects the improvements businesses are making right across the Mount Maunganui industrial area to their practices, sites and technologies. While one exceedance of the NESAQ is still too many, it’s great to see efforts by all involved in this area paying off.  

Service requests from the public

Pollution Hotline calls
Odour continues to feature on calls through to the Pollution Hotline. There have been 49 calls received by our 24/7 hotline from Jan – April 2023 in relation to activities within the Mount industrial area. Twenty-one of these related to air quality (smoke and odour) and a further 21 related to water and land, such as discharges.     

Report It online
There have been 17 notifications through the online tool where people report odours. You can learn more about this tool here. 

Industrial Odour Survey

Regional Council is undertaking a project to examine industrial odours arising from within the Mount Maunganui Airshed and Truman Road areas and investigate their causes and better ways to manage them.

Staff are currently mapping odour sources within these areas and during the upcoming winter months, site visits will be carried out in these areas. This information will be used to aid Regional Council’s air quality management work in Mount Maunganui and may inform future resource consent conditions and rules to help improve air quality.

At the meeting, Priority One shared initial results of the industrial confidence survey they carried out with Mount businesses. The survey aimed to determine how engaged business and industry were with the potential limitations of operating in a polluted airshed, current environmental awareness and whether future alternative industrial locations would entice business to move away from the Mount Industrial area. The survey is expected to be complete later this month and a link will be shared when the final report is available.

Waka Kotahi gave an up-date presentation on progress to increase and improve traffic flow and transport choices through the Mount Industrial area. The public can sign up for regular updates on development progress at: nzta.govt.nz/CMM

Regional Council updated attendees on the Environment Court interim decision recently received regarding Plan Change 13. The decision primarily relates to Bulk Solid Material and log handling and this is covered in more detail below.

You can view meeting minutes here.

The next meeting is scheduled to take place on 17 May.

Higgins and Allied resource consents

The Higgins and Allied Asphalt Plants consent applications are currently being processed. The Higgins application was publicly notified on 27 April 2023 and submissions close on 25 May 2023. The Allied application is awaiting further information, which is due shortly, after which a notification decision will be made. Anyone in the community can make a submission on a publicly notified application. More information can be found here. 

Fumigation – Genera consent application 

Genera have applied for resource consent to discharge Methyl Bromide, Phosphine and Ethanedinitrile (EDN), to air at the Port of Tauranga. The application has been processed by an independent consultant. The public hearing on the resource consent application is now set for the week of 19 June 2023.

New air quality rules

In 2018 Regional Council notified new air quality rules for those who discharge into the air to better protect and improve our air quality. Called Plan Change 13, more than 100 submissions were received. Council released its decision on the submissions on 12 March 2019 and subsequently, 10 appeals were received. All but one appeal was settled by June 2020.

In February the Environment Court released its interim decision on the appeals to Rule AQ R22 of Plan Change 13, pertaining to Bulk Solid Material handling in the Mount Maunganui Airshed.

The Court has identified unsealed yards as a key contributor to PM10 and the Court will direct Council to make a change (under section 293 of the Resource Management Act) to Plan Change 13 to manage unsealed yards in the Mount Maunganui Airshed. Staff will begin engagement with affected parties in the next few months.

Monitoring and Operations Committee

The Mount Maunganui Industrial Program reports to the Monitoring and Operations Committee meeting. You can read the latest update here.

For more information on Mount Maunganui industrial air quality, please visit boprc.govt.nz/mountindustrial